Club News (October)

Contents

• Help Your Team, Talk to Your Team Secretary
• Help Your Team, Assist Your Coach
• Supporting From The Sidelines
• Evening Training
• Term Break - No Training

Help Your Team, Talk to Your Team Secretary
Your Team Secretary is a key person in your child's football development and participation in team and club activities. They give their time freely to act on behalf of the coaching team to schedule and arrange matches, confirm player availability and selection, complete league documentation and many other activities.

Their task is a challenging one, and one very much removed from the glare of publicity. They really are the hidden heros of Derry Hill United. Each secretary has at least 12 sets of parents to communicate with and corral, and some have many more. Phone calls are both time consuming and costly, and each secretary is geared to, and encouraged to address their members through email, wherever possible. However you receive your team information, please help your secretary, to help you and your child take part in Team and Club activities, by responding to their requests as promptly as you can.

Each of your squad's contacts are detailed on the laminated team poster which was distributed at the end of September. The poster also provides details on match and training times, the training hotline and Club Committee contacts. If you don't have a poster please ask your secretary for one.


Help Your Team, Assist Your Coach
Our coaches all have challenging activities on both training and match days. There is preparation for the event, whether it be a match or training, supervision and observation, as well as instruction and debriefing of the players. In order to best utilize the knowledge and experience of our coaches I would ask you to allow them to focus on each of these tasks. This way your child will gain the most benefit from their commitment.

One way of releasing them to do more of this is to help erect, dismantle and put away equipment, goals, flags, cones etc after training or matches. This way your coaches can focus on talking to parents and players and offer guidance and advice on development etc. Sometimes I see coaches alone out on the field long after a session has finished, putting away equipment. They are parents like yourself, and can sometimes do with your support to take on tasks which don't require their expertise, and which would shorten the time they spend at the ground.


Supporting From The Sidelines
People tend to perform tasks less well when other demands are being made on their attention - kids playing football are no different.

We all need to experience a task many times before we can do it without thinking about it. Consider how difficult it was when you first started to learn to drive. As adults, with a fully developed input, perception and decision making process, we initially found it very difficult to carry out all the tasks required to control the car; change gear, accelerate, brake etc. and still have processing time left to think about the road and other vehicles, pedestrians etc. around us.

Consider that in their early years of football, your children are in a similar stage of sensory overload. For kids, with relatively little experience of football, most of their attention has to be focused on receiving, passing and moving, they have little processing capacity left to listen to instructions. The presence of crowds simply compounds their problem. They hear noise, the comments, the instructions, but in the heat of the game are unable to react appropriately. All of a sudden there are many distractions competing for their attention. So focusing on the ball and the game becomes harder. Even shouts of encouragement may be a distraction.

In summary I'd like to encourage you to support your child by attending and watching them play, however I would ask you, in their best interest and development, to limit your support to encouraging shouts ("Well Done", "Never Mind" etc.) and not instructions ("Mark Him", "Go Forward" etc.).

Oh and by the way, when was the last time you saw a professional footballer do exactly what a member of the crowd shouted at him to do!


Evening Training
The Club intends to facilitate some additional training sessions one evening of the week, starting in November. Not all groups will have such an opportunity due to coach/facility availability. This is an optional event and the Club will charge £2 per player for every session. Due to the nature of the facility (hard-court/limited space) and the availability of squad members (after school activities/bed-time etc.) groups will be made up of mixed age groups and the Club does not intend these sessions to replace weekend team activity, which is included as part of your membership payment.

Keep an eye on your mail to hear if your group is offering these sessions.


Term Break - No Training
The Club endeavours to give parents and players a break each term in co-ordination with the Primary School Year. Consequently there are no scheduled activities the weekend commencing Saturday 23rd October. Activities re-commence on Saturday 30th October. Please note there are exceptions to this rule - speak to your Team Secretary if you are in doubt of your squad's activity.

Remember all Team and Club events are recorded on the Club Calendar on the Wannadoo site.

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